Thursday, December 31, 2009

I've gotten a lot of understanding out of endings month. I haven't had time to blog about everything I've learned as I dedicated this month to a study of endings on the 5-string banjo. Among the things I've learned about but haven't blogged about:

Shave-and-a-haircut ending. Now, don't tell me that you don't already know exactly what I'm talking about. All right, if you must have an example, here's Jackie Phelps on the banjo as one of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, showing us (at about 2:25 on) what I'm talking about with Roanoke:

Amen ending. That's ending with a plagal cadence, which is a IV-to-I cadence. For an example go to church.

Ending after ending after ending. You'll find no better example than Roy Clark wrapping up the Pickin' and a Grinnin' segment each week on Hee Haw. Roy layered on one ending after another. Start at 1:38.

But even endings month must come to an end. Thanks for joining me. See you in January for beginnings month.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 12/13/2009 through 12/19/2009.

It's been a slow week so this is a good time to follow up on something.

Remember how, back in September, I put a little plastic foot on my banjo to train my right ring finger to maintain its position? It's been going really well. I can really feel it when my finger slips off of the disk and my right hand foundation has been improving.

I did make one change from my original plan: I got rid of that crescent-shaped plastic foot...

...and replaced it with a circular foot.

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

David showed me a bunch of variations on a common ending lick. I'll be posting more about that as endings month continues.

That's one of my favorite Austin Lounge Lizards songs. Unfortunately the first line — "You say your god is the one true god but my one god is the one true god..." — got clipped on that video.

Speaking of the Lounge Lizards's irreverence, here's another example of them doing a cappella for the first verse (0:28 to 1:18) and as a penultimate ending by repeating the last line (2:35 to 2:41). The ultimate ending is a banjo tag at 2:42.

There was a lot of good stuff which I'll get to in a moment, but let's start with the big disappointment: no jamming. We were promised jamming. See?

What can I bring, and what can't I bring in to the theater?There's two things we strongly encourage you two bring: Chairs and Instruments. It's a long day, so bring your camping chairs to pop a squat on when your dogs are barkin', and there'll be an open jam session and picking circle from the second the doors open. Musicians are all invited to bring their instruments and participate. There’ll be an “instrument check” along with the coat check so that you don’t have to lug your noisemaker around with you all day.

But somebody dropped the ball. There was no open jam session and no picking circle. I tried to get some jamming started but there wasn't even a quiet corner in which I could gather the several people who brought instruments. What a bummer. I hope the organizers get it together for next year.

On to the good stuff. The best part of the night, for me, was learning about slap-style instrument play from Lucy, a hula hoop vendor and drummer from Hawaii. Here she is, using my Nechville banjo to illustrate:

Yeah, it was a dark (and noisy) hallway. But her slap style of play sounded AWESOME!

The rest of the good stuff: act after act after act. Here's a smattering of photos to show you what I mean:

The night's big headliner was Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, but I have to admit that I missed most of their main stage performance in favor of the act playing on the pavillion stage: Holy Ghost Tent Revival. I figured that (a) I've got tickets for Béla and his crew for their February show at the Old Town School and (b) Holy Ghost Tent Revival was really terrific! I mean it. They've got this incredible mix of electric bass, drums, guitar, 5-string banjo and trombone that's full of energy. It's a mix of different musical styles that reminded me of both Squirrel Nut Zippers and riverboat banjo jazz.

I didn't miss all of Béla Fleck's stuff. After the Holy Ghost Tent Revival performance and after I purchased the HGTR's two CDs...

...I joined the huge crowd in the main room in time to see Alash, a Tuvan throat singing group travelling with the Fleck brigade. The raw strength of the throat singing is hard to describe. Here's a video I found of a show from Christmas Eve of last year that will give you a feel for it:

I also caught Béla Fleck wrapping up his part of the show with my favorite thing that he does: beautiful Scruggs-style banjo play. (I must admit that Béla Fleck's jazzy stuff leave me cold. It's a little too John Tesh for my tastes.)

All-in-all it was a nice evening. This is an annual event and I'm sure they'll do it again next year. Hope there'll be jamming.

Also in the last week:

Been sick this week, which put a damper on some of my Endings Month plans, but I plan to make up for it all by the end of December.